Detective Yang
by Duranda1
Summary: When Ruby Rose commits a brutal murder, Yang suspects that something is up, and uncovers a plot far greater than she ever thought possible. Contains violence. Please rate and review - this is my first fanfic and I *need* the criticism.
1. It begins with an ending

It was not a particularly pleasant day at Beacon. The clouds were slowly gathering on the horizon, and Cardin Winchester was walking to his dorm room, muttering angrily about being given extra readings by Professor Oobleck. He hadn't seen Velvet recently, and the lack of punching bag only made his day worse. He attempted to amuse himself with the memory of watching Jaune helplessly struggle as he ate his lunch in front of his eyes.

THUD.

Something tackled Cardin Winchester from behind, sending him falling face-first onto the pavement. It hurt. He tried to get up, but was kicked forcefully in the ribs, causing several to break. Cardin turned round to see Crescent Rose unfolding into its seven foot tall scythe form; the Grim Reaper had arrived, disguised as a five and a half foot tall girl in a black and red combat outfit, with a fear-inducing grin on its face. Cardin grabbed his mace, and barely managed to block the gleaming blade whistling toward his skull. Cardin pushed the blade away with all his might, and swung at his aggressor furiously to no avail - the girl nimbly dodged his best efforts, even getting a few shots at him while doing so.

It was clear that Cardin was not going to win this fight, but he was still going to try and draw blood from her.

Cardin switched to defensive, and attempted to block and dodge as much as was humanly possible - a sniper-scythe was not a particularly agile weapon, but when it hit, it hit hard. Rolling back to dodge some bullets, Cardin made a split second decision and ran as fast as he could, jumping over school benches and dodging between trees. He had to get away from that walking manifestation of Hell itself with a demonic grin on its face.

Tired from his burst of adrenaline, Cardin ducked behind one of the school buildings, panting furiously. A distinct snickering came from behind him, and Cardin turned around to feel the blunt end of Crescent Rose breaking his skull.

Lying in a steadily increasing pool of blood, the last thing Cardin Winchester ever saw was Ruby Rose barely able to contain herself.

After she had recovered from her hysteria, she severed Cardin's head (which had a terrified expression on its face), and cut off his arms at the elbows. She carefully sliced at both head and arms so that all that was left was bones, shreds of muscle and skin. She took the bones and arranged them so that it looked like Cardin was holding his skull in his hands.

She folded up Crescent Rose while admiring her "art".

* * *

Ruby Rose had had a very sleepless night. Memories of her mother had filled her dreams again, and she woke up shaking somewhat, and burst into tears on her pillow, squeezing it tightly for comfort. She'd been having these "moments" as Yang had called them a lot more often recently. Ruby wondered what had been causing them.

THUD.

"Ruby Rose, you are under arrest for the murder Cardin Winchester," came a loud, official-sounding voice, as the door to Team RWBY's dorm room fell off its hinges.

Team RWBY awoke with a start, and Ruby stared at the source of the voice, a VPD constable with immense disbelief.

"Look at her face, guilty as charged." muttered a police officer holding a gun at Ruby.

Ruby got out of bed, still stunned as to why she was being charged with murder, and lay down face first on the dorm room floor with her hands outstretched as the police officers had directed her to do. A police officer took one hand off his gun, and used it to cuff Ruby's arms together, then ordered her to come with him.

As Ruby walked out, she looked around to her teammates: Blake had a look of pure disgust on her face, Yang was looking at Ruby with bewilderment, as if she didn't think her sister could ever do such a thing, and Weiss seemed like she couldn't make sense of it all.

Ozpin walked into the room: "I'm sorry to wake you up at 3 in the morning, but when we looked at the footage, we knew we had to act quickly. See me in my office at 5pm, and I will go into more detail."

Nobody in the room got any further sleep, minds buzzing with questions such as "How could Ruby be a murderer?" or "How could I sleep with a murderer in my room?".

* * *

5pm arrived. It hadn't arrived particularly quickly - Beacon's dull classes would not allow that - but it had arrived nonetheless.

Yang stepped out of the lift to Ozpin's office, filled with dread. She still could not comprehend that her adorable little sister could kill someone, and return to the dorm and still be happy and cheery with no visible change of character. Was her sister really that heartless?

Weiss was next out the lift, mind buzzing. Ever since the Emerald Forest, Weiss hadn't quite trusted Ruby. Being "the best person you can" at no point stated you had to trust your team leader. With Ruby out the way, Weiss could finally become team leader and earn the respect of her family in Atlas, who were disappointed when Weiss had to break the news that she was just a team member.

Blake was last to leave the lift, plastering a polite smile on her face. The fury that had built up in her for accepting a murderer as a team leader was coming to a boil. Ruby evidently wasn't a very good murderer, for Blake had not even heard about the murder before the police came and arrested her. The look from Ruby that she had gotten as Ruby was moved out the room unsettled her somewhat.

"I would like to apologise for the interruption this morning. I'm sure you understand we could not take any chances with regards to Miss Rose," said Ozpin.  
"It's fine," Yang smiled, "No need to apologise. What, if you don't mind me asking, happened to Cardin?"

Ozpin motioned the trio over to his desk, turned his monitor to face them, and hit play on the video.

The CCTV footage was hard to see, but it was unmistakably Ruby Rose, with her high velocity sniper-scythe. By the time the video had finished playing, Yang's smile had faded into a look of pure horror. Blake was struggling to contain her inner rage and excused herself to go punch some things in the gym. Weiss stood there, stuck between whether to smile at Ozpin, proving he had been wrong after all, or cry at how brutal Ruby's execution of Cardin had been.

"Has Ruby been acting strangely, recently?" Ozpin inquired. Weiss shook her head.  
"No, she's been her usual boisterous self. I genuinely didn't think Ruby had it in her to kill, but the evidence is there in front of my very eyes." Yang sighed.

"If that is so, I have nothing further to ask you." Ozpin replied, and Yang and Weiss made their way back to the dorm room.

* * *

Note from Author

This section was originally 3 separate chapters, but at Meyri's suggestion, I've condensed it into a single chapter. It's my first fic, so I had no real idea how to format the chapters. In future sections, I should hopefully have gotten the length right.

Shoutout to The Jacxter for his tips on description - "If in doubt, vomit description".

-D


	2. Yang needs a deerstalker hat

_Murder? _Ruby thought as she sat in the closed confines of her cell.

_How have I killed someone?_

_Why can't I remember it?_

_Did Cardin, for all his crimes, deserve to die?_

Questions like these filled Ruby's mind. As she was (just) under 16, she was put in a child jail, where she was less likely to be raped or badly beaten.

The safest area she would be in was a room the size of a school table with no form of natural daylight. She shuddered at the thought that she would somehow have to sleep in this for at least a few years. Bathroom breaks were given every 6 hours, so if she needed to pee, she'd be holding it in for a very long time. Food was at 7, 12 and 5, so she'd at least not be going hungry. Ruby dreaded to think what she would do if she got hungry.

She hoped to any and all gods that may or may not exist that she'd get out of here soon.

* * *

Yang played the video over in her mind, having recovered from the mental breakdown of her sister having committed murder. A part of her brain believed Ruby would never do such a thing, so it played the video over, searching for something_, anything_ to prove her sister's innocence.

Weiss noticed her expression of deep thought: "Yang, I know it's hard to believe, but I think the sister you've known all your life wasn't who you think she was. Ruby's always been obsessed with that scythe of hers - I didn't think this obsession would go this far though..."

Blake put down her book. "We still have to find out why the White Fang sided with Torchwick. Going to the White Fang recruitment meeting raised more questions than it answered - how had Roman gotten hold of those mechs? Who is Roman's "employer"? There has to be more to this than a simple "work for me and I'll give you some cool toys" deal."

But Yang refused to be deterred; she concentrated harder, channelling all her memories of Ruby Rose - birth... (she looked so cute as a toddler), childhood (watching Ruby at 11 wrestle Crescent Rose was quite something) - and then Yang stopped.

Wrestling Crescent Rose was something Ruby could handle with ease now; having 5 years of experience of using it, her upper body strength was very good. Yet there were moments where the Ruby on video was struggling to maneuver her beloved scythe. It didn't make sense.

Given this flash of inspiration, Yang rushed to the locker room, found Ruby's locker, and typed in Ruby's code (something she had shared with the group in case of emergencies - this, Yang thought, was definitely an emergency).

Ruby's locker was empty. It was possible the police had confiscated it, and were going to use it as evidence in court. If Ruby had killed Cardin, surely there would be some blood here; yet there was none, not even a hint of there being any here, like the smell of disinfectant. This didn't make any sense either.

Confused, Yang headed to the library. Yang was fairly sure that Ruby had spent her afternoon here after school, so she asked the librarians, one by one, if she had seen Ruby yesterday and if so, what time. From this she gathered a picture which was not ideal; the last time Ruby had been saw was 15 minutes from the beginning of the murder, and the distance could be covered easily in that time.

She needed something to definitively prove that Ruby was in here, and wasn't out brutally murdering Cardin. All of the evidence she had did not help Ruby's case: Ruby could have taken Crescent Rose out of her locker, and then after doing the deed, hid it somewhere. The library staff showed that she was definitely in here, but not for long enough to clear her name.

_Damn it, Ruby - another 20 minutes and you'd be safe,_ Yang thought.

* * *

"It's not about overpowering them; it's about taking away what they have." Cinder had said to Mercury and Emerald a long time ago.

She had Vale's security forces present for the Vytal Festival, and a virus implanted in Beacon's CCT tower. She even had Adam, leader of the White Fang with her. Everything was almost complete.

However, there was the small matter of Team RWBY forcing Roman's hand, and causing him to prematurely run the train into the wall. For that, a little punishment was required.

It was for this reason that a rather scruffily-dressed teenage boy in a green parka, cargo trousers and trainers was sat at a table in front of her - and also the reason why she wasn't kicking him out on first sight.

"You did very well. I'm impressed." Cinder said to the mysterious figure in front of her. The boy's blue eyes sparkled at Cinder's compliment.

"Thank you very much, Miss Fall. I have to say, Ruby has a very heavy weapon. It took a few weeks of weight training just to be able to lift it. " the figure replied. For all his bad clothing, he was very well-spoken, although his Mistral accent contrasted heavily with his linguistic skills. "Who's next on the jail list?" the teenager inquired.

"I want you to imitate Yang Xiao Long, the sister of Ruby. She fights with a pair of gauntlets, which you should hopefully find easier to handle." Cinder replied.

With that, the teenager left, preparing to find, and eventually murder as, Yang. He grinned demonically at the thought of more blood, and being able to get away with it all.

* * *

Author's note

I struggled a fair bit here, but after much perseverance and/or ass-kicking from various people, I have this done.

I've changed the title to "Detective Yang" as I felt the original title "Framed" was a bit too spoilerish - although this is a little too close to Meyri's story "Detective Blake".

Suggestions for a good story title welcome!

As always, please rate and review - I need the criticism to improve.

EDIT: fixed a missing comma. That's the level of detail Nope and Dagger is going into for this.

-D


	3. An update and more story

The teenager stopped for a moment. He could not kill in the same way twice - it would be far too obvious. In addition, every single person in his contract had to remain alive, whatever the cost. He did not know why they had to remain alive, other than Cinder wanting them for her own mysterious reasons. He had a job to do, and he would have to do it if he wished to remain alive.

First things first, he had to gather information on this Yang Xiao Long. _Time to pay Junior a visit_, he thought, and began walking toward his nightclub. He was on fairly good terms with Junior, being a regular informant of his, and as a result, could fairly easily get an information trade.

Using the hidden back entrance, so as to avoid unnecessary social interaction (he was not really a people person) and to avoid being recognised by one of the partygoers, he emerged in the men's bathroom, took off his parka, and practiced his Mistral accent. Once he was satisfied that everything was in order, he stepped into the club, and found Junior downing yet another fruit cocktail.

"You will have no liver left if you keep drinking without any regard for your own health." the teenager stated in his Mistral accent, making Junior jump.

"Will you please stop doing that?! I nearly choked on a pineapple chunk!" Junior asked, annoyed. The teenager just smiled.

"Anyway, what brings you here? You don't normally drink, and you don't even pay admission, so you'd better have something good." Junior informed the teenager.

The teenager proceeded to give Junior various bits of information that he felt Junior would find useful, like the disappearance of Atlesian military Paladins, and the Schnee Dust Company suspecting one of its employees was committing fraud, then asked Junior if he had seen Yang, holding a picture of her that he had "acquired" from the Beacon computer system.

"Blondie? Yeah, I've seen her twice. She came in here the other week, asking about Roman Torchwick, and before that," Junior winced, remembering the sheer agony he had been in in the following days, "a woman I've never seen."

"Do you have any video footage of her fighting? I need it for some business." the teenager requested, curious.

"'Business', huh? You've done your part, so I guess I'll do mine. That it?"

"That is all."

Junior called over one of his men, and asked for him to put the video footage on a card, then asked the bartender for another fruit cocktail. The teenager rolled his eyes, then, to pass the time, proceeded to review all the knowledge of Yang Xiao Long he had "acquired", to see if he could make a guess as to how she fought. He decided she fought with a fairly brawny style: she used gauntlets, which ruled out any ideas of "stealth", and looked fairly attractive too, leading him to think she used her looks to charm her opponent, then sucker punched them when they weren't paying attention.

After a while, the mook returned with the CCTV video footage, which confirmed that the teenager had been dead on the money with his fighting style estimate. Fighting as (or possibly against, though he reckoned that by that time he should probably make a quick retreat) Yang Xiao Long would make for an incredibly interesting experience.

The kid walked off, but turned just before he left: "Given your years of experience in the business, I would have thought that you would have known better than to fall for such a primitive technique as being lured into a pretty lady fist…" he remarked.

Junior turned to make an irritated retort, however by then the kid was nowhere to be found.

* * *

Ruby had been in this place for less than a day, and she hated it already. She had done nothing wrong, yet was dragged into this pit in the early hours of the morning and deprived of even the luxury of daylight.

She didn't have a criminal record, _yet, _although given her trial was 8am tomorrow (the VPD wanted to move very quickly with her case), she was probably going to get one soon.

Ruby resigned herself to spending the rest of her teenage years in this hellhole for something she did not do. Strangely, though, a thought popped up in her head; she had no idea where it can came from, or even why it was here, but it ran through her head like a wildfire.

_I'll be there in an hour. Wait for me._

It made absolutely no sense whatsoever - but then again, neither did her false imprisonment. Could it be Summer, trying to get her attention? Maybe she was about to meet Yang's mother. At this point, Ruby was beginning to question her own sanity: she was hauled off to jail at a stupid time in the morning, and none of her team mates had done anything to stop the police from taking her. She was placed in a high-security prison cell which was about the size of an average table, and told to await her trial the following day. She was given a single meal, that wasn't particularly filling, and now she was having strange thoughts about being rescued.

Looking at the bigger picture, the brunette had little doubt about it: she was crazy. She thought of herself doing handstands and silly noises at an early part of Remnant. _Seems pretty accurate to me_, she muttered internally.

* * *

Blake had started to become incredibly worried about Yang. The blonde had been pacing around incessantly since Ruby's incarceration, and the lack of sleep was definitely getting to her: Yang's grades had fallen through the floor, and she was fairly easy to defeat in Ms. Goodwitch's combat classes. In addition, although Blake wouldn't admit it, she missed the comforting sound of the blonde snoring peacefully in her bed. When she did sleep, it was fitful and restless, with fairly frequent grumbling and complaining about Ruby's absence.

_Even Weiss has commented on how the poor girl has become even more prone to rage_, the Faunus reflected. Speaking about the missing team leader was a sure-fire way to get a bruising from her partner.

Blake desperately needed to do something - but what could she do? Blake had never been good at giving comforting speeches about things like Yang could (and did), and she'd prefer to keep her past in the White Fang firmly in the past. Was there a book she'd read that could provide a useful tale to give Yang? After a brief scan of her collection, none sprang to mind as being fitting - having your sister thrown into jail for a brutal murder was not a particularly common storyline. She could only think of one story that had such a thing, and in that case, said sister was a vicious cannibal, with little soul or morality.

The situation was dire. On the one hand, she had to help Yang, who was firmly convinced her sister was innocent - on the other, she had her own opinions, which were that Ruby fairly obviously did kill Cardin. She decided she would have to be selfless, or Team RWBY would truly fall apart.

_Time to talk to Yang_, she thought.

* * *

Author's note

The few of you who follow this are probably wondering what exactly has happened. I won't go into piles of detail; I think it suffices to say my mental health recently has been rubbish, and I've not exactly been able to write during that time. I'd hoped I'd be able to power through it nonetheless, but as you can clearly see, I failed.

I can't make any promises on the regularity of updates to this story, but I shall try my best, and hopefully I end up actually finishing this damn thing.

-D


	4. What Blake had for lunch

The night was young when the teenager returned to the fairly decrepit building he called home. The faded red brick had cracks along its mortar, and some of the bricks were loose enough to be pushed out of their original place. _It's fairly symbolic of my life_, the teenager reflected, _we both__ started life so fresh and new; it was a shining example of a luxury home, and me a respected child. Now the building's falling to pieces, and my life has been torn to tatters._

He picked up a faded photograph of a young girl, at the time no more than eight or nine years old. _I wonder what you'd make of the hellhole that I call an existence.__ I doubt you'd be pleased. You didn't know at the time, though, so perhaps you'd excuse me for having to go as low as this to survive. _He put the photograph down, hung his stuff up, and lit the fireplace. _Until I work out what I'm going to need, I won't be able to buy food,__ so heat rather than eat it is. _His stomach grumbled in protest.

He dug out a piece of chalk, and a damp tablecloth, and began sketching plans for how he was going to get the blissfully innocent blonde in wraps. An hour later, the teenager was claimed by sleep, surrounded by what an outsider would regard as deranged rambling by someone who deserved to be in a mental asylum.

When he woke up the next morning, he made a mental note of everything he had drawn, and wiped it all off the floor with the tablecloth. He then went outside, and walked over to a good friend of his - he had business to do.

* * *

Yang was in the library, writing notes to herself on even minute parts of the video footage, like the cape design, and the individual placement of each and every clip for Crescent Rose. Ruby was a stickler for detail when it came to weapons; when she was 14, she perfected the placement of her clip belt so that she could minimise reloading time for her beloved high-caliber sniper scythe. Yang's attention to detail such as this had turned up several details, like the placement of her cross clips, and the timing of the reload were nowhere near the precision that you would expect from someone with 5 years of experience wielding her weapon.

It all seemed a little strange, but it seemed her gut instinct that Ruby was innocent was correct.

But how was she going to prove all of this - to her friends? To her family? To the cour-

Yang was distracted from her thoughts by a laser beam that had appeared on the screen.

_Damn you, Blake, for getting my laser pointer._

She saved her work, logged out, and went to find out why Blake wanted her badly enough to interrupt what she was doing in the library.

* * *

Having successfully gotten the blonde's attention, Blake stifled a chuckle at her sweet revenge, and waited patiently for Yang to arrive. Sure enough, the brawler knew exactly where Blake was hiding, as she was in the exact same spot Yang had been in - it was her intention to be found, so there was little point hiding somewhere else.

"It's about Ruby, isn't it?" the blonde correctly guessed.  
"You've _seen_ the footage _so many times_. It _clearly_ shows Cardin getting _brutally murdered_ by _your sister_, and _yet_ you _still_ think she's _innocent. _How?" the Faunus demanded, failing to keep her frustration about the pointlessness of her partner's search at bay.  
"She _is _innocent. I've known her for her _entire life_. She wouldn't do such a _horrible_ thing at _knifepoint_, let alone of her _own free will_!" the blonde countered.

Blake took a deep breath and calmed herself down. If she kept arguing like this, she'd end up fighting her partner, and the raven-haired girl knew that was an outcome that was not in her favour.

She looked Ruby's sister in the eyes, and calmly spoke the two words she could think of that might solve the issue: "Show me."

Without hesitation, the blonde-haired human lead the raven-haired Faunus back to a library computer and logged in.

It was obvious what Yang was going to do: play the video that had plagued her waking thoughts ever since she'd been in Ozpin's office. She was going to have nightmares of that damn thing for years to come.

* * *

_Something tackled Cardin Winchester from behind, sending him falling face-first onto the pavement._

Blake put her hands over her eyes, not wanting to view the sickening CCTV footage again. Once was quite enough for her lifetime. Irritatingly, the blonde peeled her hands off, and looked her in the eye.

"Ruby Rose doesn't tackle people." Yang stated. It was true, tackling people as a fairly short girl like Ruby would be fairly difficult, so Blake put aside her misgivings for now. If she wanted Yang to get some rest, she didn't have a choice about watching the same video that was burned into her eyes.

_ He tried to get up, but was kicked forcefully in the ribs, causing several to break._

_"_Ruby would _never_ do something as low as kick people in the ribs. Has she ever seemed like that to you?" Yang asked.

"No, she hasn't." the Faunus admitted. She was starting to see the blonde's point - perhaps this _wasn't_ Ruby after all. But how? The only person who looks remotely similar to Ruby Rose _is_ Ruby Rose.

_Cardin turned round to see Crescent Rose unfolding into its seven foot tall scythe form; the Grim Reaper had arrived, disguised as a five and a half foot tall girl in a black and red combat outfit, with a fear-inducing grin on its face._

"Look at Ruby's face. I have never seen that look on her face in her _entire_ life. It actually scares me" the alleged killer's sister said truthfully. By now, the Faunus had to admit things weren't adding up at all. It was all horribly out of character, but Blake couldn't work out why.

_ Cardin grabbed his mace, and barely managed to block the gleaming blade whistling toward his skull. Cardin pushed the blade away with all his might, and swung at his aggressor furiously to no avail - the girl nimbly dodged his best efforts, even getting a few shots at him while doing so._

_"_Ruby could fairly easily block those hits." Blake stated.

"Yes, but why didn't she just use her Semblance to dodge?" Yang countered semi-rhetorically.

_It was clear that Cardin was not going to win this fight, but he was still going to try and draw blood from her._

_Cardin switched to defensive, and attempted to block and dodge as much as was humanly possible - a sniper-scythe was not a particularly agile weapon, but when it hit, it hit hard. Rolling back to dodge some bullets, Cardin made a split second decision and ran as fast as he could, jumping over school benches and dodging between trees. He had to get away from that walking manifestation of Hell itself with a demonic grin on its face._

_"_That face is still there." Yang muttered.

Blake remembered what came next: "Uh, Yang, I'm going t-"

_Tired from his burst of adrenaline, Cardin ducked behind one of the school buildings, panting furiously. A distinct snickering came from behind him, and Cardin turned around to feel the blunt end of Crescent Rose breaking his skull._

Blake's stomach emptied itself over the blonde's carefully maintained hair, and for a moment Blake thought it was going to trigger her Semblance. Surprisingly however, Yang understood - though that's not to say she wasn't unhappy.

"God dammit, it'll take forever to get your lunch out of my hair." Yang muttered accusingly.

Blake's cheeks were scarlet at having thrown up in the middle of the library and quickly rushed out of the room. with the blonde fairly close behind.

* * *

Author's note

Wow, I actually managed to get this chapter done in a reasonable timeframe. There's hope for this story yet, it seems.

To the guest who posted a review: Sorry if all my characters are somewhat OoC; this is my first fanfic, so such mistakes are to be expected. I'll nail it eventually.

Shoutout to Namejawa on Reddit for his positive feedback for this story.

EDIT: I should add for anyone who thinks Blake is being OoC for throwing up, it's my personal headcanon that while Blake _did_ kill people during her time in the White Fang, she never killed anyone as brutally as L-I mean Ruby did, so she can't take it.

-D


End file.
